Friday, May 12, 2006

Funky Friday Fourpack

Here are four tracks from four albums that have come out in the last four weeks.

Matmos - Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan - from the duo's brand spanking new The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast, this is a great piece of quirky, leftfield disco. Beautifully packaged with a set of postcards (one for each track on the album), it is a typically crazed set of experimental electronica that can test one's patience but is ultimately rewarding and often flat out beauteous.

Rinôçérôse - Le Rock Summer is taken from the self titled greatest hits set that came out this week and is atypical Rinôçérôse - fab disco beats and lots of big '70s rock guitar collide with strings to equal dancefloor deliciousness.

Roisin Murphy - If We're In Love is a groovin' bit of midtempo soul from the Moloko singer's debut solo album Ruby Blue. This album came out in June of last year but only just got a US release. Produced by ultra hipster Matthew Herbert, it is a sonically cool set of oddball funk and ballads filled made of found sounds and layered vocals. A much slept on record that deserves a wider audience.

Gnarls Barkley - The Last Time - a track from the most talked about record of the year so far. The hype might be a wee bit much on this, but by and large St. Elsewhere is as good as it gets. DJ Danger Mouse, fresh off of the success of Gorillaz and DangerDoom, teams up with one of my fave soul singers, Cee-Lo Green. The record is a briskly paced look at insanity with music that is experimental yet commercially accessible. Extra points for the weird-yet-remarkably-faithful cover of Violent Femmes' Gone Daddy Gone. Going crazy has never sounded like so much fun!